This invention relates to a sheet finishing apparatus for selectively applying a finishing process such as jog discharge, alignment or binding to sheets fed from an image forming apparatus such as a laser printer or copier, and more particularly, relates to an image forming apparatus equipped with the sheet finishing apparatus.
Conventionally, it has been known that there are an apparatus in which a pair of discharge rollers slides in a direction of rotating shafts to sort and discharge a sheet and an apparatus in which a stapler binds a bundle of sheets after discharged.
In a case of such an apparatus in which a pair of discharge rollers slides to change a discharge position of a finished sheet bundle, or a pair of discharge rollers slides to discharge a sheet to a finishing position or a position near the finishing position, when the pair of the discharge rollers and the stapler are disposed upstream and downstream in a discharge direction of the sheet, respectively, it is necessary to provide a space for sliding the discharge rollers or for the stapler separately, thereby making it difficult to make the apparatus compact.
An object of the present invention is to provide a sheet finishing apparatus with a jog function and a finishing function and an image forming apparatus equipped with the sheet finishing apparatus. Since an internal space of the apparatus is effectively organized, the apparatus can be made compact.
The following provides a detailed description of a configuration of the invention to attain the aforementioned objectives.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, a sheet finishing apparatus performs a predetermined finishing process on a sheet fed from an image forming apparatus that forms an image on the sheet. The sheet finishing apparatus includes discharge means having a pair of rotating shafts and discharge rotating bodies supported on the rotating shafts; shift means for shifting the rotating shafts in a shaft direction; support means for receiving and supporting the sheet discharged by the discharge means; alignment means comprising an alignment reference member for aligning one edge of the sheet discharged on the support means and a moving member for moving the sheet discharged on the support means to the alignment reference member along the shaft direction; finishing means disposed and protruding at a side facing the support means with the alignment reference member in between for finishing the sheet aligned by the aligning means; and a shift tolerance portion disposed at a side facing the support means with the aligning means in between for allowing the rotating shafts to protrude when the shift means shifts the rotating shafts.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, a sheet finishing apparatus includes drive means for driving the discharge means to a side facing the support means with the alignment reference member in between.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, a sheet finishing apparatus includes storage means for storing the sheet finished by the finishing means, moving means for moving the sheet finished by the finishing means to the storage means, and drive means disposed at a side facing the support means with the alignment reference member in between for driving the moving means.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, a sheet finishing apparatus comprises common drive means for driving both the discharge means and the moving means.
According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, a sheet finishing apparatus includes drive means for driving the shift means to a side opposite to the finishing means with the alignment reference member in between.
According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, an image forming apparatus has one of the sheet finishing apparatuses according to the first aspect to the third aspect.